The Hardships of Growing
by Liana Legaspi
Summary: An AU one-shot of Annabeth growing up. / In which being a mortal girl in this day and age may or may not be more difficult than just killing monsters. "I just wanted to show you that…that even though bad things happen a lot, there're some really, really good stuff to live for too. Even if some of the people you loved didn't realize that."


An AU one-shot of Annabeth growing up. / In which being a mortal girl in this day and age may or may not be more difficult than just killing monsters.

* * *

THE HARDSHIPS OF GROWING

* * *

**WHAT AGE ZERO INVOLVED**

**A difficult birth**

**A teary father**

**A mostly bald baby**

**And a grateful mother**

Athena's child comes this close to killing both of them, and she's barely ten minute old—but hey, some are early bloomers.

Her little girl is 5 lbs. 7 oz., she looks like a lobster, and she's so, so small and weak, Athena's relieved she made it. And a little surprised too. (But she makes sure not to mention that to Frederick.)

Nurses coo over her and tell Athena that her daughter's beautiful, and that's just how it goes. The little girl is showered with compliments before words and the world can hurt her. But it's mostly for her mother's sake. They're desperately trying to relax and distract her from the overbearing fact: it's not a healthy baby.

Athena's an intelligent woman, and she can guess that much. As her baby gets older, they're going to run into some health issues for sure, but for now—for now she'll just be glad. By all rights, her daughter shouldn't be alive, but she is. It's a mercy that Athena and Frederick Chase are overwhelming grateful for.

Athena names her girl Annabeth, meaning "God has favored me."

As Annabeth grows, her name becomes painfully ironic.

* * *

**YEAR FOUR IN A NUTSHELL**

**Countless days spent outside**

**A withering mom**

**A busy dad**

**And blissful naivety that one can only find in children**

She's four, and she's a slip of a thing. All curly, yellow hair and stormy eyes.

She spends most of her time at Kingstone Park, in the shade—with her nose in a book that's a _little _too mature for her (which is truly saying something, considering most children her age haven't even learned how to read) and her head tucked beneath her mother's arm as Athena runs her fingers through her hair.

People passing by frequently stop to compliment the pair (namely Annabeth) on how pretty and smart she is. A few question if she really understands what she's reading, and Athena's lips quirk up into a small smirk and she tells them, "Yes, she does."

Annabeth, for her part, doesn't acknowledge them much. Only nodding and saying a quick "thank you" when it's required of her. She's four and she's happy with herself. She doesn't care yet about what other people say.

Athena presses a kiss to her temple and tells her, "I love you, Little Girl."

Annabeth says it right back to her, but her nose is back in her book before she notices the slight crumple in her mother's face.

* * *

**FIVE, GOING ON SIX**

**Whispering**

**A locked door**

**A woman called Helen**

For the past month or so, Annabeth's daddy had been coming home smelling like lilacs.

It's not because of Athena, Annabeth could tell you that. For one, her mom's allergic to lilacs, and two, her mom smells different. Warm. She smells like a mix of cinnamon, sweat, books, autumn—she doesn't recognize or know where this new smell was coming from.

Evidently neither did her mom. When Annabeth's dad comes home late again, and Athena grills him on where he was, he says what he always does. He had another late shift, and if she could put a hold on the interrogation, he could his sleep.

When she offers him his dinner, he tells her that his boss ordered everyone dinner since they were working overtime. Athena doesn't comment, but Annabeth can see in her eyes that her mom doesn't believe him for a second. When he gets up to go to bed, he moves to kiss Athena on the cheek, but she moves away like he burned her.

Annabeth wakes up in the middle of the night to go to bathroom, and she finds her daddy awake in his office, talking on his phone. She doesn't know why she does it, but she pauses outside his door.

Love has a lot of aspects, at five years old, Annabeth knows this. There's the love of friendship and family and there's the love of people like her mom and dad. It's all love, but it's _different_.

When Annabeth's daddy says, "I love you," it sounds like how he used to say it to her mom.

Only now he says it to a woman named Helen.

* * *

**SEVEN**

**A wedding ring**

**Thirteen missed calls**

**A desperate father**

**A disappearing mother**

**A crumbling world**

**An attempt to run away**

**An unlicensed driver**

**And a neighbor named Luke**

When they search the house, there's no note. Only a ruby wedding ring left on their old, dinged up coffee table, and Annabeth _knows_ what it means. Her dad knows too, the only difference is that she can't accept it.

She just _can't_.

Her dad calls her cell five times before giving up and delving into a bottle of scotch. Annabeth calls eight times before her dad puts away the phone and takes her hands is his.

"Annabeth…" His voice is soft, like how it is whenever he used to read her a bedtime story but with the way his breath smells like liquor, it does absolutely nothing to calm her.

Annabeth shakes her head firmly, lips pressed together. She would not accept this. Her mommy is coming back—she just needs some space for a little bit. Her parents both do.

"Annabeth," her dad says again, eyes bloodshot and wet, "you're a smart girl." His lips quiver. "Don't make me say this aloud. Don't make me admit it."

Annabeth loves her father she truly does. But standing there, listening to him grovel and scramble for excuses, watching his eyes fill up with tears and hearing his throat grow hoarse, she can't be more ashamed of him. Adults are supposed to know better, Annabeth wonders why it isn't that way for her dad.

"Your mother," he chokes out, body racking with sobs, "I drove her away. It's my fault. All my fault."

She doesn't move to comfort him or yell at him. She simply stays there and lets him hug her, until he gets so tired, she needs to guide him to the couch in order for him to sleep. This isn't how it should go, she realizes faintly. This is supposed to be the other way around.

Suddenly, she knows she can't stay anymore.

She runs.

And only makes it two blocks before crashing outside of Sweet on America because, God, she's so tired and angry and alone and _left behind_. Annabeth knows she can't run away. Not really. For one, she'd never catch up to mother, and two, it would break her father's heart.

And Annabeth resignedly decides it's been trampled enough for today. She curls up underneath the neon American flag and waits for her dad to find her because it's good for him to be a little bit terrified for a change. And she'll never admit it, but a small part of her _wants _to see him panicked and desperate, thinking the two most important girls in life (or who _should've _been) each left him within less than ten hours from each other.

When a boy, around thirteen or fourteen, finally notices her, Annabeth doesn't look away or dry her eyes. She stares right at him, and he stares right back at her. She knows who he is, and she's pretty sure it goes both ways.

She's neighbors with him. She's passed by his house while he was playing basketball on his driveway a couple times. They've never talked. But she's heard yelling. Even with all the windows and doors shut, she could hear him and his dad fighting.

She thinks his name's Luke.

He frowns up at the sky for a minute, like it holds all the answers before walking into Sweet on America, and she bows her head, not quite sure if she's happy he ignored her or not yet.

When the door swings open, she knows it's him, but doesn't look until there's a Twix bar dropped into her lap.

"It's like the commercial," he tells her conversationally, "Twix fixes everything."

She knows he doesn't believe that, but she smiles a little anyways. They stay there for a minute, five, an hour—Annabeth didn't really keep track. When a shiny red car pulls up to them and the driver's window rolls down to reveal a girl much too young to being operating any kind of vehicle, Luke stands up, frown on his face.

"Like it?" the girl asks.

"You stole it," Luke says, upset but trying to hide it, "you know how I feel about that kind of stuff, Thalia."

"Pshh, I call it, 'selective borrowing.'" She waves him off and her gaze settles on Annabeth. "Who's this?"

Luke introduces them, and after Annabeth gives a polite "hello" like her mom always trained her to do, Luke steps forward to whisper something to Thalia.

To this day, Annabeth never knew what was spoken, but Luke opens one of the doors and looks at her. She knows very well that she, under no circumstances, is allowed to get into a car with strangers—especially at night and with no one around—and much less with a twelve year old driver, but Annabeth hops in anyway, abandoning her cautiousness _just _for a little bit.

They take her home without any questions, and when she gets inside, her dad's still asleep. Blissfully unaware that his baby had just tried to run away after her mom.

Annabeth expects that to be the last she ever sees of Luke and Thalia, but it's not. They drop by the next day to take her out to Freeziac.

It probably shouldn't work out the way it does; there's such a big age gap between all of them and who ever heard of a twelve and fourteen year old actually being friends with a little kid? But they stick together like glue anyways.

And Annabeth has hope.

When she gets home, there's a woman sitting in her living room. On her _mom's_ chair.

Her name's Helen.

She smells like lilacs.

* * *

**THE GOOD THING ABOUT EIGHT**

**New friends**

**THE BAD THING ABOUT EIGHT**

**A mother with a drinking problem**

Luke, Thalia, and Annabeth all have one thing in common: they're parents suck.

Luke's mom had been committed to an asylum when he was nine and his dad's a kleptomaniac. His clothes, his money, his car—everything Mr. Castellan has had been stolen. It makes Luke feel sick sometimes, just to walk around his house and know, that stuff didn't belong to him. As for Thalia, it was a mix of business over children and a _slight_ drinking problem, which Annabeth kind of already knows. Kathryn Grace had been on enough of FOX News over DUIs in the past couple years.

All in all, Annabeth finds friends in these two misfits. Yes, Luke can be a little too serious at times, and sure, Thalia is…a little difficult to get used to, but she wouldn't have traded them for the world.

Her dad's a little unsure about the whole thing, and Helen is too for that matter, but oddly enough, neither of them push it. Like they're afraid she'll break if they go too far.

And who knows, maybe she would.

She does.

It's all over the newspaper and on TV, and Annabeth _can't _miss it no matter how hard she wishes she had. On channel 2, Wendy Williams informs her that Mrs. Grace, driving while intoxicated, had wrapped her car around a tree, killing herself and two children.

Helen walks toward her, a worried crease in her brow. "Annabeth—"

But she's already out the door. She doesn't even realize where she's going until she's outside Luke's house. He opens the door, takes one look at her, and wraps his arms around her. She cries.

She cries and cries and cries, and she _might've_ felt a tad bit embarrassed if Luke's shoulders weren't shaking with suppressed sobs too.

Annabeth, age eight, attends her first funeral.

She almost cries again when she sees Thalia's body, but it's looking at six year old Jason that makes her feel sick.

Annabeth doesn't care if Kathryn Grace was a celebrity or not.

There was simply no excuse.

* * *

**WHAT TWELVE-THIRTEEN BROUGHT**

**A slight makeover**

**A cliquey school**

**Percy Jackson**

Annabeth Chase wears a Yankee's baseball hat on her first day of school, and she knows before she goes inside that she should've worn something other than torn jeans and one of Thalia's old T-shirts.

There were four different groups: the girls who wore dresses and had perfect makeup—the ones everyone liked (a.k.a. Silena Beauregard), the girls who wore punk clothes and a little too much makeup (with a pang, Annabeth realizes that that would've been Thalia), the cute-without-trying girls in snapbacks and converse, and then girls like Annabeth (the ones who got dressed in order to not be naked).

She finds out pretty quick that, in this school, everyone already has their own group of friends, and not a lot of people are interested in taking in a girl like Annabeth. She spends the entire day alone, save for a few friendly kids from the popular group like Silena, Katie Gardner, Malcolm, etc.

Excluding Drew Tanaka, no one's really mean. If anything, they're helpful, open, polite…but they were just doing it for the sake of being nice. And, oddly enough, that just made Annabeth want to please them. Make them like her.

Annabeth never was one to bend to peer pressure. And she desperately wishes she had someone to talk to about this, like Thalia, who didn't care what anyone else thought about her or…or her mom. But she doesn't.

She passes by Luke's house on her way home, but its empty, save for his parents. Luke left for college a few days ago—Oxford. Annabeth stomach twists a little. He left for Oxford.

She's proud and happy for him, she really is—with parents like his, this was a huge deal for him, but 79 hours and 13 minutes later, Annabeth really, really, misses him.

Annabeth remembers what being alone felt like. She swore then and there that she wouldn't let herself be alone again.

She wears a dress the next day. Just to blend in with the other girls a little more, and they don't seem to think too much of it. Silena tells her she looks cute, and Annabeth feels a little better. But no matter how hard she tries, she can't fit in to any of their conversations—5SOS, 1D, Eleanor and Louis—it's girl stuff. And Annabeth _is _a girl, but all she really winds up doing is sitting still and listening politely and laughing when everyone else does.

It's not fun. It's awkward. But it's better than being alone.

* * *

It's halfway into the year when she notices him, and she feels a little guilty about that.

It's halfway into the year when her science teacher, Ms. Harder, decides that the boy who sits beside her in class needs help, and she's the one to do it.

She takes one look at him, and she's so, _so_ tempted to simply tell him, "I'll finish the project myself and put both our names on it." But he's looking a tad eager, and maybe even a little _relieved_—and not in the "oh good, I don't have to do anything" way, but in the "this time I might actually understand what the heck is going on" sort of way.

Annabeth's never been easily persuaded via puppy dog eyes, but looking at him now…. It's pretty dang hard to say no to a pair of baby seal eyes.

She extends her hand. "Annabeth Chase. Not Anna or Beth; Annabeth," she presses, because she just doesn't do nicknames.

He nods, storing the information away and shakes her hand. "Perseus Jackson, but that's kind of a mouthful, so just Percy."

She later finds out that he's a misfit at school. She can sympathize with that.

* * *

They meet at Sweet on America to work on their project—mostly because of Percy. Something about his mom working there and getting free candy, either way, that's where Annabeth found herself Thursday afternoon.

Despite what she'd originally expected, Percy wasn't a total idiot. Sure, he was no Isaac Newton, but he knew some things, which was pretty much all she could ask for from him. From what she gathered, he had a _C+_ average. Her science teacher's idea—to pair up her most struggling student with her brightest—which Annabeth thought was a little unfair.

He actually isn't really anything like what she had expected him to be (a.k.a. he's not a total imbecile/jerk). The only thing about him that she finds she can't really get over is his little 20 question thing going on. He'd spent half the time working on their project and the other half trying to get to know her.

"This is a science project," she stresses, "not a get-to-know-you, which for the record, I really don't so…"

"Come on," he complains, "we're practically finished."

They've barely started. If they want to get an _A_—and ohhh, Annabeth _does_—they'd need a lot more than what they already had.

Her eyebrow twitches. "Finished? You…call this _finished_?"

Percy snaps his fingers like he just figured something out. "So you're a perfectionist. See? Getting to know each other isn't that hard if you just loosen up a little."

She decides for the sake of the candy store to let that last comment slide. "And you, _Perseus_, are irritating as heck."

"Annabeth," he says, almost serious, "please, go along with this. It'll be good for us in the long run."

"Oh really? How so, Smart One?"

"Well, Wise Girl, if you get attached to me now, then I might actually be able to improve my grades and learn something, and Ms. Harder won't have to keep finding you new partners."

Annabeth waits for him to say he's joking.

He doesn't.

She decides then and there that Percy Jackson _is _a nuisance…and, in his own weird, questionable, and somewhat-selfish way—smart.

Annabeth sighs and leans back, gingerly picking out a couple blue jelly beans. "Okay, fine…. Hobbies?"

"Swimming, boating, fishing, skateboarding. Are you attached yet?"

She smirks at him. "My hobby is reading."

He expects her to continue and when she doesn't he draws out a long, "O-o-okay. Favorite color?"

"Orange." She glances at the bowl of blue candy between them. "I'm going to take a wild guess that yours is blue."

"Give the girl a prize. It's 'cause of my mom. Her boss once told her that food can't be blue so she goes out of her way to make blue food."

Something—not jealously, because she's Annabeth and she doesn't do jealously—rises in her throat. "Interesting."

He looks innocently at her. "How 'bout yours?"

Time feels like its stopping. "My mom?"

"Yeah, does she have any weird habits?"

Annabeth narrows her eyes at him. "No, but she does have the tendency to run away and never come back."

Percy blanches. "Oh God…man, I-I'm sorry, Annabeth, I didn't realize…"

"It's fine," she says stiffly, desperate to change the subject. "Favorite movie?"

He takes a while on that one before deciding, "Too many good ones. You?"

"I don't have one. What's your—?"

"Nope."

Annabeth blinks. "What?"

He pops a blue sucker into his mouth. "You can't just skip like that."

"But you did!"

Percy takes a moment to study her. "…So you're a go with the flow kind of person?"

Her face feels hot, and thinks for second. "Star Trek," she tells him.

He raises his eyebrows a little. "You like Star Trek?" he's trying not to sound too surprised, but it manages to tick her off anyways. "Not that that's, like, wrong or anything. I just…didn't expect someone who looked like you to be…someone like that."

She frowns a little at that and straightens her skirt. "Yeah, well, I am like that," she tells him, even though she doesn't completely get what he means.

He bobs his head in agreement, but Annabeth can tell he's still thinking about something. "Problem?" she asks, and when he doesn't answer right away she groans. "Don't tell me you're one of those guys that, like, separates things into a guys' section and a girls' section."

Because if he is, Annabeth just might request a new science partner and this would be her third request of the year, and Ms. Harder was really starting to lose her patience with her; star pupil or not.

Percy shrugs. "Nah, that's not the problem."

"Oh?"

"Just…Star Wars is so much better."

Not the reason Annabeth was originally going to dump him for, but she still considered it.

* * *

**WHEN SHE WAS FIFTEEN**

**This year made seven seem okay**

Annabeth always kept her birthdays simple and consistent: cheesecake with no candles, no friends, just family, and four presents.

Only, this year, there are five presents. One from her dad, Helen, Matthew, Bobby…and Percy. She smirks. She knows deep down that that boy's bullheaded and teases her a little more than he should be away with, but he grew on her. Like a disease.

She saves his gift for last and when she gets to it, she's half expecting it to be a League of Legends gift card because he'd totally do that to her and, though she'd never admit out loud, she was actually kind of getting addicted to it.

But it's not. In fact, it's way better.

It's a ticket. For _Star Trek Into Darkness_. On the inside of the envelope, Percy had scrawled: _Don't wory, Wise Girl. I got my owne so you're not all okward and alone like you are at school._ And Annabeth's happy enough that she chooses to ignore his poor spelling (which he mostly likely did on purpose just to annoy her anyways) _and _the fact that she isn't alone at school. Even if the person she is at Olympus High, isn't very…real.

She's about to go upstairs and call Percy to thank him, but her dad stops her.

"One more, sweetie," he tells her. He hands her a silver box, and she doesn't catch the way his voice is a tad higher than normal or the nervous way he looks at her.

When Annabeth opens it up to find a pair of owl earrings, she doesn't understand. Until she reads the note. Annabeth was never a delicate girl. She'd been through a lot already—emotionally anyways. But all it takes are six little words. Six little words to make her heart stop and her throat close.

_I love you, Little Girl._

Annabeth shuts the box and throws it back on the table. Helen and her dad call after her, but she ignores them. Her face burns and her eyes prickle. Athena does not _get _to do that to her. Seven years of being gone—not even letting them know if she's alive or not—and Annabeth is angry. _Livid. _

Athena's not allowed to try to _buy_ her daughter back through a birthday gift.

She doesn't mean to, she honest to God doesn't, but she forgets all about Percy's gift.

The next day, he waits at the theater for her from nine to eight.

She doesn't come. She spends the day with Luke because she's missed him, and he won't be on summer break for forever. Percy runs into them at Starbucks, ten o'clock, and takes his Frappuccino to go instead of eating with them.

Annabeth doesn't understand why, the next time she sees Percy, he's a little quieter than usual.

* * *

Luke Castellan has only been home a couple weeks and Annabeth knows something's not right.

He's lost a lot of weight and his hair's a mess and constantly chewing his lip, and it's so wrong to see him like that, that eventually, she pins him against the wall and demands to know what the hell is wrong.

When the story finally comes out, it comes pretty darn close to breaking her heart. Luke's dad had been caught and arrested stealing from Tiffany's, his mom's getting worse, and he's failing college. After all those years of planning and hoping, Luke is flunking, and he has no idea what to do.

"Luke…" Annabeth breathes.

He smiles, but it's tight and stretches his face too much to be genuine. "Life is just hard sometimes, you know? I thought I'd be over this kind of crap by college but"—his face seems to break along with his voice—"guess not."

Annabeth wants to comfort him, but she just doesn't have it in her. It's the anniversary of Thalia's death, she hadn't seen Percy in forever 'cause he got his stupid butt expelled (surprisingly, Percy Jackson remained as Annabeth's science partner all of seventh grade. Unsurprisingly, he still got kicked out of school. Something about calling their principal, Mr. D, an old sot…. Annabeth wasn't really sure) and _then _went on a boating trip with just his dad, and Helen's making home so…so _not _home—for once, Annabeth is at a loss for words.

She nods her head slowly in agreement. "Yeah," she tells him. She feels like she should go on: _but you'll always have me here. I can't follow you to Oxford, but there's always the phone. Or e-mail. Your parent's mistakes don't define you. You do. _But she doesn't. Annabeth doesn't because she thinks he already knows that.

Then, Luke Castellan hangs himself in his garage, and Annabeth is seven again. Square one. Only much, much worse, because where her mother _might _have come back, Luke definitely won't.

She buries herself underneath her comforters and screams at her dad when he checks up on her.

When Percy visits—cutting his summer vacation short just to make sure she's okay, she asks—no, _tells_ him to leave. Because _where the hell was he when she needed him?_

She'd hoped she's found something permanent in him, someone who would last an eternity. But she's wrong.

Evidently, she's not beautiful or smart or _worth_ sticking around for.

* * *

She gets sick not too long after that. Her immune system has always been pretty weak to begin with, but with all the stress she's going through on top of it all, it's enough to push her over the edge. Physically…and mentally.

One of the twins (she's not sure who at that point), open the bathroom door to find her on the floor, desperately trying to unstuck a bottle of sleeping pills.

* * *

**WHAT YEAR #16 BROUGHT**

**The same as every year**

**Some good**

**But a lot of bad too**

She was treated delicately after the incident. Silena, Katie, the Stolls, Reyna—they tiptoe around her. They don't mention it when they talk to her, they don't even say anything vaguely hinting at what she _almost _did last year, but they don't really need to.

She can see it in their eyes.

_This girl is suicidal._

Annabeth tries desperately to fit in again like when she was twelve. She amps up the makeup and smiles all the time, only this time, no one's actually buying it. She does what her psychiatrist says. She takes the pills. She goes to sleep at ten and wakes up at eight. And it's all garbage because she's just not getting better because she's just _not okay_.

Annabeth is all plastic smiles and broken eyes, and that self-assured little girl is so long gone it feels like another lifetime.

Every other night, it becomes a habit to sit outside Sweet on America and just imagine. Imagine Luke come strolling by, imagine Thalia driving that stupid, overpriced car and taking her home, but neither of those happen. Instead, a boy with sea-colored eyes and messy hair comes…

And freezes.

Annabeth is the first to break eye-contact.

He's the first to walk away.

* * *

Annabeth Chase, in all her sixteen years, had never ditched school. Not once.

She hadn't been planning to either. She _was_ going for a perfect attendance record, but she forgets all about that as soon as Percy shows up outside her school with an ugly, banged up truck. She stands still for a moment, puzzled, because he'd gotten expelled _years _ago and if Mr. D found him outside his school, there would be a problem.

Percy opens the door for her and waits. He'll let her take all the time she needs, but at the end of the day, she _is_ getting her butt in that crummy old truck.

Oddly enough, Annabeth's across the parking lot in less than six seconds, and Percy's driving off to who knows where.

He looks different now. She hadn't seen him in forever—not since she yelled at him, not since Luke…

She shakes her head. Her psychiatrist told her not to confront that stepping stone 'til she was ready. Ha, stepping stone. It's more like Mt. Everest.

She's suddenly very aware that she's in sweats and a T-shirt, barefaced, and she rolls her eyes because _of course _she wouldn't be up for primping herself the day Percy shows out of the blue….

Annabeth has to stop to wonder why she cares.

They spend 75% of the day driving and the other 25% stopping and doing various things like eating blue candy and watching _How To Train Your Dragon 2_ and running around Hobby Lobby like a couple of idiots and it all feel _so normal_ Annabeth feels better than she has in a very long time.

At the end of the day, they find themselves in Kingstone Park, underneath Annabeth's tree.

Her drift shut and she feels weightless. "Percy?" she begins, voice soft. "What was all this for?"

It's a long time before Percy speaks, and when he does it's awkward and Annabeth just _knows_ he'd planned what to say beforehand and just now forgot because that's just so _Percy_.

"I, er…" he fumbles a little more. "I just wanted to show you that…that even though bad things happen—a lot, there're some really, really good stuff to live for too. Even…" He trails off and doesn't speak again until Annabeth nudges him with her elbow. "…Even if some of the people you loved hadn't realized that."

There's a dull ache in her chest, but she doesn't get angry with him. "Yeah?" she asks.

He nods firmly, eyes search hers. "_And _I wanted you to know that, well, even though I'm, like, getting kicked out of every single school I attend, I'll still be around if you ever need me. Or at least, when I'm not at military school."

Her eyes bug out of her head and she laughs. And laughs. And laughs. Because Perseus Jackson in military school is priceless, and he'll probably wind of burning the entire place down before they kick any discipline into him.

When she finally calms down, Annabeth finds that his eyes are bright, encouraged, like he knows he did something right. "But we can always write," he continues.

"Oh yeah, as if I'm going to even _try_ reading those chicken scratches you call words."

"Hey!"

And they go on for a little bit longer until they're both laughing and carefree and _okay_.

There are some moments that require extra words to be said. Words of comfort and love and hope, and there are other times, where nothing needs to be said at all. Where it's best if both parties remain silent and simply _be_.

Percy rests his hand atop of hers, and their pinkies interlock. She looks down at the river and finds herself staring up at her. Yellow hair, grey eyes, and high cheekbones. No makeup. No jewelry. She looks sloppy, and she knows it, but with the way Percy stares at her…she's okay with that.

All her life she's been told she's smart and beautiful, and other times she's been told she's a misfit and nothing remarkable. Little Girl, Wise Girl—for once, Annabeth decides that she'll be what she wants to be, no matter what anyone else tries to decide for her.

And, for a second…

She feels strong.

* * *

**Exhausted and in need of either coffee or Dr. Pepper. Perhaps writing this in one sitting wasn't the brightest idea, but oh well. Here it is.**


End file.
